Lyrical Realities
by Raineh Daze
Summary: Haruhi has decided to form a band, Tsuruya has agreed to fund it, Nagato has written a computer program that can alter reality, and Kyon has been used as a trampoline...
1. The Idea

**Disclaimer: I do not own Suzumiya Haruhi or any of its characters. Well, that's it, are you expecting some more? =P**

**Warning: crack ahead (probably, I'm not the best judge).**

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"What did you say?" Kyon asked with disbelief etched onto his face. As always, this expression was directed at the living hurricane known as Suzumiya Haruhi.

"Don't act like you didn't hear me, Kyon! I said we are going to form a band!" The girl seated behind him irritably replied.

"Haruhi, we're in our final year. There isn't time for creating a band and still passing entrance exams." The boy feebly protested, knowing any of his objections would be overruled. That, at least, never changed.

"You're too lazy, Kyon! Any good brigade member can easily handle this much and more!" Haruhi argued, her volume making the boy wince and wonder if anyone had located a way to get people to be quieter. "Besides, there's no backing out now, I've already found instruments!"

"Where?"

"Do you remember ENOZ? They broke up after the car incident that was in the news a few weeks ago and put their instruments for sale online. As a favour, they're willing to give me a discount if I buy everything." Haruhi explained, reminding Kyon of the cultural festival in their first year and Haruhi's idea to form a band to take part in the next year. He had thought that she had forgotten about it.

"Have you actually paid them for the instruments?" Kyon asked, feeling an impending doom descending upon his wallet. For Haruhi to actually pay for something beforehand seemed unlikely, let alone to buy a mass of instruments she would likely tire of after only a few days.

"Not yet." Haruhi reluctantly admitted. "But if all five of us pay part of it we'll be sure to have enough!"

An uncomfortable silence descended as the boy processed this latest statement. All… five of them? "You can't mean that you're dragging Asahina-san into this! She has more important things to do right now!"

"Moving on to another stage of education is not an excuse or method to leave the SOS Brigade! Even if it was, I would still go and find Mikuru-chan and get her to join. There's no better stage decoration and singer, Kyon!" The girl asserted.

"If Asahina-san is singing, then what is everyone else doing?" Kyon asked with morbid fascination at what terrible fate the energetic girl behind him had assigned.

"I'm the lead singer, Yuki-chan is lead guitar, you're playing bass, and Koizumi-kun is on drums." Was Haruhi's reply. "I'll play guitar with Yuki-chan if necessary."

"I have no idea how to play any type of guitar." Kyon objected.

"You'll just have to learn as we go along."

"We have nowhere suitable to practice. The clubroom doesn't have the space and the noise would bring the student council down on us again."

Haruhi opened her mouth to counter before being cut short by Okabe. "Suzumiya-san, Kyon-san, unless you wish to share your discussion with the rest of the class, please be silent. Homeroom has started."

Haruhi chose to stare out of the window at the spring landscape, tuning out all distractions, whilst the boy in front of her made an attempt to pay attention to the list of increasingly inconsequential notices the teacher was reading out.

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Everyone but Haruhi beat Kyon to the clubroom. Mikuru's presence wasn't particularly surprising given how she knew what was necessary to ensure that her future came about. The green-haired girl beside her was completely inexplicable, however. What reason did Tsuruya-san for being present?

"Afternoons, Kyon-kun!" The energetic girl greeted.

"Good afternoon, Tsuruya-san. What brings you here?" Kyon politely asked as he took his usual seat and examined the game Koizumi had selected for them. Othello, how nostalgic.

"Mikuru-chan mentioned she was coming to sees Haru-nyan and everyone todays." Tsuruya answered, moving her chair closer to Koizumi's and helping him not lose every game. Her outfit reminded Kyon of a character from an anime he had watched once, all the older girl was lacking was an airgun in a holster.

"Thank you, Asahina-san." The boy said before being echoed by everyone else receiving a cup of tea. A glance at the girl serving them showed an outfit suspiciously similar to the one her older self had worn every time she came back in time.

"I do believe that I have won." Koizumi declared as he took advantage of Kyon's momentary distraction to place the deciding piece on the board. His opponent looked back at the game to discover his position was irreparable with only one move open to him and that one concluding the game with the esper as the victor.

Peace filled the room like some invisible balloon created from ridiculous similes as Mikuru joined Kyon to even the sides and Nagato continued typing something on a laptop by the window. The peace was popped when the door was exuberantly thrown back and nearly bounced right into the face of the person entering.

"I had to check something." Haruhi offered as way of apology for her tardiness. It was better than the complete lack of explanation that defined the beginning of the brigade's existence, though.

The girl momentarily stood with her mouth hanging open like a goldfish's upon noticing the two ex-highschool students before continuing as if their presence was nothing out of the ordinary, even if it was conveniently timed.

Kyon waited for the inevitable announcement about Haruhi's plans to form a band. He had been hoping that the girl would have changed her mind by now but her reaction to the busty girl's presence showed that obviously wasn't the case.

Now seated, Haruhi explained her idea to the assembled SOS Brigade. Nagato continued typing without any outward signs of listening, Koizumi responded with a smile and a nod, Mikuru's expression grew steadily more apprehensive as Haruhi mentioned anything to do with clothing, and Tsuruya's face lit up with an excitement to match Haruhi's. Kyon, meanwhile, ignored the entire explanation and defeated Koizumi, only to be brought back to earth as Haruhi announced the price of the instruments.

"500,000 yen? Even split between five of us that's still a ridiculous sum of money each! I thought you said this was at a discount." Kyon complained. There was no chance that he could afford to spend that much money even if he emptied his drink-depleted life savings and got a part-time job. Spending 100,000 yen on what would likely be a passing fancy of Haruhi's would also get him in massive trouble with his parents.

"It's a lot of high quality equipment as well as the instruments, as it was we don't have to pay the transport costs or any of the money that it cost ENOZ to store everything on short notice." Haruhi said defensively.

"Where do you think four highschool students and a single university student are going to get so much money?" Kyon asked. Really, the question was more about how he was going to get so much money. Koizumi had his organisation for support, Nagato could probably create the money with no difficulty, Mikuru wouldn't have been sent back in time with no source of income, and Haruhi always procured money for expensive costumes with little difficult.

Haruhi was saved the bother of having to answer when Tsuruya spoke up, causing everyone in the room to cease what they were doing to look at the fang-sporting girl – even Nagato. "I'll pay all of its."

"But… but… it's so much money and you're not even a full brigade member!" Haruhi spluttered, echoing Kyon's sentiments. How could anyone without a full-time job have so much money to waste on someone else's hare-brained scheme?

"I've always wanted to funds a band. I'll even manage it if you likes." Their mysteriously wealthy benefactor said, providing a woefully inadequate explanation. Haruhi, naturally, was perfectly satisfied and began asking what they could ever do to repay such generosity.

"Just don'ts give up on this, okays?" The green haired girl requested, looking embarrassed by Haruhi's unusually fervent display of gratitude.

Kyon half-fancied that he could feel fate's terrible noose wrapping around his neck as Haruhi agreed not to abandon the band 'even if a woman in a white dress threatens us with a talking staff', whatever that meant. Unsurprisingly, she didn't stop to consider the rest of the brigade's opinions on the vow, but that was nothing new. The one normal person in the brigade felt that even a hundred years was too short a time to remove Haruhi's tendency to rush into things without stopping to think first.

"Suzumiya-san seems pleased." Koizumi remarked as the two energetic girls began to discuss what sounded like the logistics of moving an army but was really locations to send and store the equipment and places the yet-to-be-formed or named band could practice. The word 'house' was mentioned several times.

"Who wouldn't be pleased to be handed so much money in exchange for a simple promise?" Kyon responded, claiming one of the board's corners. "I just hope Tsuruya-san doesn't have anything to do with the Yakuza. The last thing the world needs is for Haruhi to have links to organised crime."

"The promise may not be as simple to honour as you think once Suzumiya-san begins to grow bored of it. Nevertheless, I find myself agreeing with you on both counts." The too-smiley boy said, following Mikuru's advice and managing to claim a corner for himself. "I personally think a band sounds like fun. What do you believe, Kyon-kun?"

"I think it's going to consume all of our free time," Kyon cynically answered, "especially now that Haruhi has promised not to give up on it even under threats from fictional characters."

"Despite your complaints, you have yet to announce that you will not be taking part." Koizumi pointed out, losing ground on the game now that one of his aides had gone to make more tea and the other had become too involved in a conversation to help.

"If Haruhi is involved, any objections will be overruled." Kyon argued, claiming the third and final free corner for himself.

"Could it be that you find the prospect of forming a band enticing?" The esper suggested. Kyon's reply was a non-indicative grunt and a final move that brought the round to a close and handed Koizumi another resounding defeat.

The youth chuckled and set the board up for another round, to be joined by Mikuru after she had given Haruhi a cup of tea. With the sides once again balanced, Kyon found it difficult to gain any noticeable advantage. Despite the handicap, he still managed to gain more wins than losses until Haruhi and Tsuruya sided with Koizumi, at which point his fortunes turned for the worse.

Hours later, after banter that made a simple board-game seem as important and dramatic as a fight to the death with weeks of preparation, Haruhi ordered everyone to meet at Tsuruya's house by 9am Sunday 'or else' before leaving as energetically as she had come. Tsuruya was the next to leave, followed by the less over-enthusiastic Mikuru and Koizumi.

Kyon was about to follow them when the room's other occupant tugged at his sleeve. He turned to see what she wanted and was directed to the screen of the laptop the interface had been typing on earlier. It displayed an operating system and GUI unlike any he had seen before, with an appearance refused to linger in his memory as anything other than a vague impression of sleek lines and flickering machine code. The screen's contents didn't possess the same eldritch properties but were equally incomprehensible: pages of complicated code in no earthly programming language, though it bore a close, if superficial, resemblance to SQL.

"What is it?" The boy asked, tearing his eyes off the screen to focus on the small girl beside him.

"An untested computer operating system designed to allow non-verbal data manipulation displaying a program to transfer Asakura Ryouko's memory and basic personality to a human vessel." The lilac-haired girl answered. "Permission to execute?"

Apart from the sound of the wind outside, the clubroom was silent as Kyon debated the relative merits and disadvantages of allowing Nagato to create a completely human Asakura. On the one hand, she had tried to kill him. On the other, if Nagato wanted her back then that was unlikely to be the full extent of her personality and there was always the possibility that her return after a long absence would distract Haruhi from her plans before they properly started. Curious as to the interface's reasons for wanting her colleague back, Kyon asked Nagato for her reasoning.

"I… miss her." Was the almost inaudible, hesitant reply, something even more unbelievable than Tsuruya's spontaneous decision to hand Haruhi half a million yen. Even if it stemmed more from emotion than logic and once more gave Asakura a chance to gut someone, Kyon found it difficult to tell Nagato that he didn't think what she was doing the right thing. Cursing himself for being incapable of resisting what was, for Nagato, a startlingly overt display of emotion, he gave his permission.

The fading lines of code when the program was executed were considerably less climactic than the cynic had been prepared for. Nothing else resulted from its execution and Kyon felt slightly cheated as well as confused by Nagato's failure. With no reason to stay any longer, the boy headed home at the same time as it started to rain. And the forecast had promised clear skies all week…

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**Got any plot holes, logical errors, demands for longer chapters, requests for me to continue this one, grammatical errors, observations of references, guesses as to what's going to happen next, or anything else that comes to mind? Feel free to share them with me. ^^**

**I have anywhere from the next two to four chapters planned out, and we're not going to reach what I actually consider the main plot until that point. XD**


	2. Trampoline Awakening

**Disclaimer: I don't own Haruhi. Really surprising, isn't it?

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Sunday dawned bright, early, and… full of repeated impacts. Kyon's mind struggled to make sense of this through the warm, familiar obfuscation of sleep. A few scattered thoughts drew possibilities from some of his stranger dreams, none of which could be easily ruled out so long as Haruhi and whatever strange power she subconsciously wielded continued to exist. Even the thought that the whole world had been transmuted into rubber of various types and the impacts were the feeling of a collapsed roof bouncing after falling upon him was plausible until proven otherwise. A single rational thought broke through the veil of sleepiness to deliver the important message that Kyon could find out the answer simply by opening his eyes.

Nothing as fantastic as his sleep-addled brain had wrought greeted Kyon as he opened his eyes; the mundane sight of his sister using his body as a trampoline instead welcoming him to the waking world. Whilst it answered the question of why his body felt like it was being turned into a fine past, it was still extremely confusing. It was Sunday and Kyon certainly hadn't told his sister about the brigade meeting that day, leaving her no reason to jump up and down on him at six in the morning.

"Why are you up this early and why did you have to wake me up?" Kyon demanded, displaying saint-like patience despite the bruises he was sure to get and the lost sleep. Not that all saints were likely to have acted in a saintly manner, instead being turned into saints for the horrible methods in which they had died or some strange events surrounding them. Saint Kevin, for instance, lived up a tree, had a blackbird lay an egg in his hand and let it stay there until it hatched, protected a man-eating monster that hadn't hurt him from hunters, and pushed a woman into lake before living to one hundred and twenty.

"The phone was ringing and I was the only person who was woken up. It was Haru-nyan and she told me to make sure you reach Tsuruya-chan's house on time for once." Was Kyon's sister's explanation, though it didn't explain why she had chosen to wake her brother so early in the morning. When he indicated as much she continued her explanation. "Haru-nyan said I should wake you up as soon as possible to make sure that you got up."

If not for the now-still body pinning Kyon's arms to the bed, he would have facepalmed. As it was, he was restricted to sighing. It shouldn't have come as a surprise to learn of Haruhi's involvement in his being woken up but it had. It was a distressing signal that he had grown too complacent in the months of peace following Haruhi's last major bout of activity. Maybe the band was the universe's way of punishing him? It was certainly looking like it, requiring skills Kyon didn't have and dedication he would rather not provide.

"Can I come with you?" The girl asked optimistically, not seeming too upset after her request was denied and she was thrown out of the room. The period of silence after her dismissal was full of the sound of her brother making an important decision: whether to stay awake and attempt to be the first to arrive at Tsuruya's house or whether to go back to sleep and risk being late. To the surprise of absolutely no-one who knew a thing about him, Kyon chose to go back to sleep.

"Kyon, you're late! Penalty!" A frowning Haruhi complained when the youth finally found his way to the correct room. "Even though you're not the last one here, I made sure to help you get up on time. Therefore, you're still the one being penalised!"

He didn't protest the penalty, suspecting that he would have received one for needing help to be on time even if he had been the first to arrive. Instead, Kyon looked around the bare room to see who had yet to arrive, expecting Mikuru or possibly Koizumi to be the absentee. That couldn't be the case, however, as they were sat behind Haruhi playing Monopoly and talking. Their host was also present and leaning on her arms as she read a manga which contained, for some reason, what looked like a whole army of Nazi vampires. Whatever the reason, Nagato – the most reliable member of the brigade, in Kyon's opinion – was the only person still absent half an hour after the appointed time and that didn't seem right.

"I am sorry that Nagato-san is late but it took longer than expected to find some clothes other than her school uniform that were the right size." Someone said, their voice familiarly doom-laden and upbeat. Kyon turned with morbid fascination, every muscle in his body poised to run as Asakura Ryouko pushed Nagato through the door. This proved two things: that Nagato's computer program had actually worked and that Haruhi found the sight of Nagato dressed in a Gothic Lolita outfit worth hugging.

"How was Canada?" The cynic asked conversationally when the blue-haired girl approached him but before she started a conversation. He got the feeling that any conversation she started would begin with an apology for trying to kill him and the opinion that the interface-turned-human still clung to the belief that killing him at that point was the right thing to do.

"It was… cold and… lonely despite the amount of… people." Asakura hesitantly replied, presumably referring to wherever she had actually been rather than Canada; unless that was Canada, which was always a possibility. "I also feel that I must apologise for my actions before I… had to leave. Nevertheless, I believe that it was the right course of action at that moment in time and I would not hesitate to do the same thing if put in that situation once more."

Kyon didn't know whether to be pleased that he had predicted the girl's actions or irritated that she had mentioned something that would cause nothing but problems if Haruhi was paying attention. A small part of his mind found the hesitation in her voice an intriguingly human addition, if not surprising, but it was drowned out by the SOS Brigade's leader and founder's looking away from, if not releasing, Nagato and asking what Asakura had done. Thinking fast, Kyon drew from Asakura's attitude towards Nagato in that other world to weave what he hoped would be a believable explanation.

"Asakura-san thought that I might be Nagato's closest friend and wanted to ask me whether I thought that she should confess her love before transferring or keep it a secret. Nagato misheard part of the conversation and thought that it was a confession for me, which was awkward." Kyon lied, praying that Haruhi would accept it as the truth – even if that meant, according to one school of thought, that he was praying to Haruhi that she would accept a lie. He hadn't counted on Asakura's blushing, though that helped his story, or the silence that followed his words.

"R-Really? That's brilliant! Ryouko-chan, you have my full permission to date Yuki!" Haruhi replied excitedly, pushing Nagato towards the other girl, who moved out of the way and hastily left the room before anyone could ask why she had dressed Nagato up and accompanied her to Tsuruya's house in the first place. "That was strange…"

"How is a girl running away after having her crush on another girl revealed strange? Your reaction just made it worse." Kyon argued, finally sitting down.

"You're right. For revealing embarrassing secrets and hurting a girl's feelings you've earned another penalty, Kyon!" Haruhi announced, ignoring the boy's second sentence in typical Haruhi-esque fashion.

"Anyway, you're probably wondering why we are meeting here. The reason is that Tsuruya-san has kindly decided to let us use her house to store our instruments and practice. Before we get around to that, we need a good name for a band." The girl said, once more coming up with strange priorities.

"What about the SOS Brigade?" Koizumi suggested.

"That's a good suggestion, Koizumi-kun, but it's a good name for a club, not a band." Haruhi replied.

Mikuru was the next person to offer a suggestion. "Umm… m-maybe we could use our initials, Suzumiya-san?"

"We could do that but I would feel like we're copying ENOZ."

"Why don'ts you pick random words from an English dictionary, Haru-nyan? I broughts one just in case." Tsuruya suggested, her speaking up once more causing Kyon to wonder what sort of girl had the money to fund a band all by themselves and the influence in their own house to allow said band's instruments to be stored as well as reserve a large room for practicing.

"That's a great idea, Tsuruya-san. You should pick the words since you're the one with the dictionary." Haruhi gleefully said. It was anyone's guess whether she was agreeing with Tsuruya because she genuinely thought that it was a good idea or because of gratitude for the green-haired girl's investment.

"Hmm… Lyrical Realities." Tsuruya announced a minute later, somehow managing to have picked a dictionary where every word was given a separate listing even if it was a simple plural. "It's got somethings to do with music and poetry, as well."

"Any objections? No? Good." Haruhi asked, giving no-one time to object. "Can you write that name down somewhere, Tsuruya-san? I'm going to go show Kyon where everything's stored so he can bring it here. When everything is set up we can start practicing."

"Why do I have to carry everything here?" Kyon asked, wondering what personality-warping effect had caused Haruhi to tell people her full plans for once.

"You have two penalties to work off, Kyon!" Haruhi asserted, forcefully dragging the boy after her before stopping outside of a doorway which looked the same as so many others in the house. When opened, it revealed a room about the same size as Kyon's bedroom full of every piece of musical equipment he could name and several that he couldn't as well as the instruments that he had been expecting to see there. Just how much had Haruhi bought?

And how was he meant to carry it all?

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**Decided to end the chapter there, though I'm not entirely sure why. XD**

**Anyway, direct any criticism or suggestions or compliments or stuff at me if you feel like it. XD**

**Oh, and if you have any complaints that I'm not writing this in first person: I could have, but for some reason I didn't. Maybe if I get really bored before writing the next chapter I'll revise everything? Who knows, it's not really that hard to do. :D**


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